Category: Jam Session
hi, i'm planning to buy a eDrums but before taking the plunge and spending a huge amount, I wan't to know if it's accessible or not. i'm afraid that I might end-up with an unusable gear.
brans that I'm considering are roland, yamaha, or alesis. please help.
thanks in advance...
My boyfriend has a roland kit. I have no idea which exact model, but I can ask him and repost when he's home later if you'd like specifics. his cost right around $1000, and only the snare has a mesh head. (He would have liked to have all mesh, but that was extra.) The kit detects whether you're hitting the snare rim, or the actual head. It's also sensitive to force of course, and I believe the high hat, or some symbol, has sensitivity as to where you hit it.
This is a newer model with a smarter brain, one where you can plug in a USB or something like that. the menu system is absolutely 100 percent totally inaccessible. Maybe you can memorize the menu system? but you'd have to have a lot of time on your hands for that. It seems pretty layered and complex. There are a ton of menues and options.
There is a scrolling wheel where you can cycle through kits. The name is displayed in text on the screen, so that's not accessible, but you can feel the clicks of the wheel as it settles on each new instrument kit.
The only other thing I know about the kit is that he uses his own double bass pedal, because he hated the idea of a fixed one.
The buttons are regular push style as far as I know, so you can feel them.
He wanted something high end to get the most realism out of it. he purposefully sacrificed accessibility for quality. Sometimes he rangles a sighted person into reading some of the menus to him, and he had help setting it up initially. this is just his home practice kit so the neighbors don't kill us. Our band uses an acoustic set.
let me know if you want more info. He's not a Zoner, so I'll poke him into writing something for you, and I can post it up.
Oh yeah, I think he said part of the user manual is up online in maybe PDF? Something he can read anyway. the rest, I believe, is not free... or inaccessible. Probably it's just paid. You might have a shot at hitting Roland up for the whole e-manual if you've purchased the kit already.
Hope this helps
OK, he came home and is nerding out at me. here's what the expert drummer says:
model = Roland td11. Key features:
mesh snare, dual trigger snare with rim and normal head, dual trigger high hat and cymbals (so different sounds for center of it vs. the edge of it). Adjustable
sensativity, ability to switch between preset kits (there's about 30 of them I think). Menus would generally require sighted help for any of these drum kits, so I chose based on how natural I could make it feel. The other brands that I tried at the same price range didn't feel as natural.
, note that this doesn't come with accessories such as bass pedal, throne, or sticks. If you can afford a full set of mesh heads, absolutely go for it.
So that's what he has to say. He says that this model is the kit he suggests.
hi HauntedReverie, thanks for the reply, you're post help me a lot. I will check-out rolan td11 in the store and see if I'm comfortable with it. the menus and options are what I'm concern the most. the feel, not so much cause I have a acoustic drums to practice with.
btw can he use the basic functions with out sighted help? E.G changing drum sounds.
Here's the latest!
I can change through preset, aka premade drum kits myself, or if I had sighted assistance to customize a full set, I could get to it through the inaccessible menu as well, but individual
adjustment without help would be very difficult. However, that is going to be the case with any quality electric kit I've encountered. Some of the cheaper models might be easier to manage by way of just having fewer customization options, but, having owned one, I wouldn't do it again. The response time on them isn't as fast as I can play, and they feel clunky to me since you're usually banging on thinly covered hard plastic. Mostly though, it was my frustration with having drum pads that couldn't even keep up with the speed I can play with one hand that drove me to dispense with the cheap kit and upgrade to the
Roland, since at least, even though I can't use all the features it offers, playing on it is at least enjoyable. And I can use my double kick pedal!
ah, okay. thanks again ma'am. i'm going to check-it out in the store soon.
Those are awesome. I've played on them at Guitar Center before.
I have the Roland TD4KP, which is the portable V Drums that fold into a carry bag. I love
it and in my situation I don't have the apartment space to leave them out all the time, so
being able to pack them away or easily take them to practice is ideal.
Like the person with the TD11, the brain is inaccessible but what I did was braille out the
menu system on about 3 pages, so I'm able to quickly refer to it if I need to adjust
anything at all. I can customize my own kits and adjust all the settings by counting wheel
clicks.
Would I like a higher end model? Of course, but they aren't going to be any more
accessible.
BTW I upgraded the snare on mine too to be the mesh dual zone pad.
Hope this helps.
I have a TD9 with all mesh heads. Much like Quantum, if I were using it more (Which I intend to), I would have the menus in some accessible format so I could start working things out on my own. What's great about having all mesh heads is you can take a key to the snare and toms, and tune them to have a more acoustic-like difference in feel as you play them. Well worth the money.
thank-you for the feed-back guys, i'm going to check this out in the store. but i think I will be more incline to buy the td4kP for portability and space sake.